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Joining the ranks of such luminaries as Jack Thompson and Governor Blagojevich, GamesIndustry.biz has the word that Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences. From the article: "Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them...This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it's OK to diss people because they are a woman, they're a different colour or they're from a different place." Commentary available at The Australian. Update: 03/30 02:22 GMT by T: Thanks to reader mantle_etching, here is a link to the entire speech as delivered, so you can judge its content for yourself.

But, when I went to a friend's house and played it with my friend's 12 year old son in the room (we were just racing around vice city) and the kid yells "pick up the hooker! Give her money and run her over and get it back!" it made me immediately question video games, violence, GTA, and the future of America.

Needless to say, we shut off the game. Asked him where he heard about that (at school) and dad sent him to his room.

Cough. I'm glad I'm not the only one. Makes it slightly less embarrassing.

But, when I went to a friend's house and played it with my friend's 12 year old son in the room (we were just racing around vice city) and the kid yells "pick up the hooker! Give her money and run her over and get it back!" it made me immediately question video games, violence, GTA, and the future of America.
Needless to say, we shut off the game. Asked him where he heard about that (at school) and dad sent him to his room.

What's particularly strange is that although this "kill the hooker in GTA" meme is now well known, it is only ever mentioned by people who don't actually play the game. Nobody who plays the game would ever do it because there's no point. You don't make any money, you don't complete a mission, so it's an entirely pointless thing to do.

I'm convinced that the feature is there purely to cause controversy and get free advertising for the game, based on the premise that even bad publicity is worth having. The fact that your friend's 12-year old was discussing it in the playground is proof of that. It's a taboo thing to do, so it's immediately worthy of gossip.

What's particularly strange is that although this "kill the hooker in GTA" meme is now well known, it is only ever mentioned by people who don't actually play the game. Nobody who plays the game would ever do it because there's no point.

Hey, that's not true. When I get my fiancee to play GTA, killing hookers is all she wants to do. Actually, not even just hookers, but any woman who happens to be scantily clad. She doesn't care about the missions, races, etc., she just wants to run around killing "sluts".

Even among people who play the game more seriously than my fiancee (like me, for example), the ability to commit violent acts at will is part of the appeal of the game. What those who scapegoat video games (and movies, music, etc.) fail to understand is that the game is a safe and healthy way to release your aggressive urges without having to hurt real people. For the most part, the people committing the real murders and rapes out on the streets aren't the people who have the latest ultra-violent video games to come home to.

Not to be Freudian or anything, but almost all of our entertainment-oriented media (and even much of the media that's not supposed to be about entertainment, like the NEWS) is filled with sex and/or aggression, because ultimately that's what humans get off on. Whether you're talking about movies, video games, sports, gladiators in the arena, or whatever, that's how human entertainment has always been and how it will always be. And there's nothing wrong with that.

And I strongly suspect that even the 12-year old mentioned by the grandparent post understands the difference between play/fantasy violence and real violence. Personally, I think a positive chat about the subject would have done him far more good than resorting to the silly and unproductive send-him-to-his-room tactic.

Show me one parent that isn't absolutely mortified by GTA and I will provide you with a list of hundreds that will take the other side.

Well gee, maybe those hundreds of parents should get off their collective fat asses and pay some attention to what their kids are doing. Don't like? Fine, then don't play it, don't let your kids play it. Don't waste time and money to keep other people and their kids from playing it.

I'm amazed with the number of comments in this article that no one's really picked up on this.

I find it hard to agree that this teaches that "it's OK to diss people because they are a woman, they're a different colour or they're from a different place." is accurate.

The common argument against this is that did playing super mario brothers make us all want to jump on and throw turtles around? Did playing tetris make people obsessive about placing blocks in tightly packed configuration? If you played Monopoly as a child are you bound to end up trying to corner a market in your adult life? It's obvious that the things we do as a child have affects upon who we become when we're adults. What isn't clear is what effect playing a violent video game will have on the developing mind. Maybe it causes more violence, maybe it causes LESS evidence (as it serves as an outlet), or maybe it's just a wash... We really need multiple case studies in order to judge this, and I don't believe we have these multiple case studies.

Now let me come back to some specifics on Hillary's comment. First I think if killing a prositute is a diss on all women, isn't jailing prositutes also a diss on all women? I mean after all in both cases an external party is depriving the women of her rights to treat her body as she wishes. Is Hillary for legalized prostituion as well?

Next I haven't heard of any overtly racist portions of GTA or other equally popular games. I think it would have made a pretty big stink if there were racist elements to the games, so I'm not sure where this comes from. I would say the US public has a pretty low level of tolerance for overt racism and you usually hear about it when it occurs anywhere in mainstream media.

Finally, we're allowed to discriminate against people from a different place. We can hate the French all day long for example (American Fries anyone?) and for the most part this doesn't spark outrage. We have a long history of hating different countries for different reasons. Russia, Cuba, etc... We hate the people of a country all the time. It's hating them for their race that's bad! And the US government continues to discrimate against those from foreign countries today. We see it overtly in the form of immigration laws and more recently in the treatment of people siezed during Bush's little war.

On a slightly different note I don't see why this is an issue for the federal government. Do you not want your kids to play GTA? Fine, don't buy them GTA. Oh, but one of their friends might have it! God forbid that as a parent you might need to get involved in your childs life, talk to their friends parents, or even have to say no to your child once in a while. This is just the government pandering to lazy parents who aren't willing to take responsibility for how they raise their children. The more the government does this the lazier parents are bound to become as their responsibilities (and along with those rights!) are taken away from them.

So to sumarize: No one needs to admit anything's true. Saying that without providing any facts is a really lame. Just like Hillary you're playing off the fears of people without any hard data. Where's the problem [disastercenter.com]? As video games have become more and more popular crime rates have been going down. It seems to me that video games occupy teenagers time and cause crime to go down. Perhaps you could get your head out of your ass and admit that this is true.

Why? Most people who play videogames aren't children, they're in their 20s. Someone who isn't aware of that thingks that GTA causes kids to be violent in much the same way watching somebody beaten to death with a baseball bat in Goodfellas does.

No wait, kids can't see Goodfellas. That's a grown up movie.What, you mean grownups watch movies

I don't know if the US has videogame ratings, but if they do, and they're enforced, children would have a pretty hard time getting their hands on GTA.

If the US doesn't have videogame ratings, or they're not enforced, then that's your problem.

It looks as if someone who doesn't understand video games is trying to create a problem.

Is Jon Stewart any less qualified than George W. Bush was when he ran?

Or Ronald Reagan, or Jimmy Carter, or any number of other presidents we have. Why is there this common notion that we need someone "qualified" to be President. The Constitution requires that a candidate for the presidency must be a "natural-born" citizen of the United States, at least 35 years of age, and a resident of the United States for at least 14 years. That appears to be all of the "qualifications" needed.

Part of the problem with this country is we think we have to elect lifetime politicians to every office and somehow incumbents magically are better at governing. I wish I knew how to change the attitude of the American people on this. I would LOVE to see some average Joe off the street elected president. Someone intelligent for sure, but someone that hasn't made a career out of lying to everyone and could serve is four years and get out.

I probably don't agree with Jon Stewart's politics, but I have not problem with him running and might actually vote for him because he's not a career politician.

I would LOVE to see some average Joe off the street elected president. Someone intelligent for sure, but someone that hasn't made a career out of lying to everyone and could serve is four years and get out.

I know this is hard to believe but not every politician has built a career on lies. I would dare say even most of the ones in DC haven't built their careers on lies. A lot of people happen to get into politics to try and make a change.

I don't have a problem with career politicians either if they have made a career out of fighting for what they believe in (even if I happen to disagree it) rather then a career out of just being a politician for the sake of being a politician (the leadership of the NYS Legislature comes to mind in that department). I'd have an easier time voting for John McCain even though I disagree with him on a number of huge issues (abortion being the first that comes to mind), because whatever else you can say about the man, he speaks his mind and fights for what he believes in.

As far as needing someone "qualified" to be President... I don't care what the Constitution says. I'm not giving some stranger off the street the nuclear launch codes. I want somebody with experience in politics, diplomacy and who has actually seen something of the World and knows how it operates. Note: This is not George W. Bush either.

Do you think (as a staunch Democrat) that I like this? Do you think I like having to settle for somebody center-left/centrist/center-right? Hell no. But the reality of current demographics and the Electoral College is such that I don't foresee any leftist Democrats being elected in the next decade or so

This was the exact logic that lead to the nomination of John Kerry.

As long as this logic is followed, only people like John Kerry will be nominated by the Democrats for election.

And as long as this logic is followed, the Democratic party will continue losing every single election they enter.

Listen: There is no such thing as "centrist". There is no "political spectrum". There are only two things. There are people who stand for something, and people who don't. Right now the Republicans are winning elections because they stand for something and they can convince people of what they stand for. If you put this up against what the democrats are offering-- which the democratic leadership thinks of as "centrism", but everyone else in the entire world sees as "we agree with the republicans, but we don't want to take it quite as far"-- it will lose every time. And in every election since 1994 not involving Bob Dole, it has. Whether what the Republicans offer is what people want is uncertain, but it is certain people would rather have real Republicans than fake Republicans.

http://www.apa.org/science/psa/sb-anderson.html [apa.org]Fac ts versus Myths about video game violence The guy covers the main points about video game violence. In short, yes there are. But there are more studies that show that children are likely to become violent if their parents are negligent or violent.

People tend to mimic what they are exposed to. It is the same pscyhological pattern that first enabled us to learn how to communicate when we were little, and although there is some dissipation of this phenomenon as we grow older, it never completely goes away.

Sufficient exposure to violence, even if entirely virtual, will tend to result in more violent behaviour in the individual. The amount of exposure to violence that a person can tolerate with no outwardly obvious effects ever manifesting varies greatly from individual to individual, but is fundamentally linked to the pscyhological bent that all human beings have to mimic their surroundings, as I mentioned above. Because, as I said before, this phenomenon dissipates somewhat with age, younger children _TEND TO BE_ more susceptible to influence caused by exposure to violence than older people.

Because the impact varies so much from person to person, however, it's probably simply most appropriate to let a child's parent determine if they should be allowed to be exposed to the material. Obviously, video game stores are not going to be responsible for parenting other people's children, so it's probably reasonable for them to err on the side of caution. If the parent thinks it's okay, then the parent should get it for the kid himself.

I actually did some research on this for a paper a while back. The one study that I saw that was of any interest goes as follows:

Two sets of children, same age, same geographical area, same school, kept separate as much as possible to prevent "polluting".

Set A: Given video games to play for X hours a day.

Set B: No video games.

I can't remember for sure, I'd have to dig it up again, but I believe that Set B also was limited on their television intake.

Results: Set A children angered more easily and were more prone to hitting each other in play. Set B children were more patient, hit each other less, and had calmer attitudes.

At best though, this is only one study, so it was careful to point out that this drew a "correlation" between more violent play, quick tempers, and Video Games. They didn't list what games were played, or any details on the children, so results are dubious at best.

Do you at least know what age these children were? I could easily see a 5 or 6 year old being more violent after excessively violent video games and tv shows, but I'm not so sure about a 16 year old, unless they had completely horrible parenting.

Parents really need to be more in tune with violence in video games. My step brother was about 11 and was very prone to violence (not against people, but he was all about breaking things and punching holes in the wall). My dad had just married to his mom, so he didn't feel he was exactly in a position to put this brat in his place, but the point is, the kid was violent and got angry entirely too easily. For Christmas, he got a PlayStation 2. I talked to my Dad at some point before hand and told him "no matter what you do, do NOT get Matt any games that are rated M, it's probably not in his best interests". Then I find out a few weeks later, my dad or stepmom went out and bought him GTA3.

I do take exception to people saying video games are the root of all evil. But I completely agree when people say they could - in conjunction with other factors - cause a child with many more social problems (ie: violence and the like, or, at the least, improper anger management). I was infuriated that my father had bought this kid GTA3. Frankly, if you wouldn't trust them with a gun, they shouldn't be playing that type of video game. I honestly think it was the only time in my adult life I ever yelled at my father. I yelled so much my voice turned hoarse over it. Even aside from the problems Matt had with anger management and violent disposition, 11 year olds don't need to be playing video games where the purpose of the game is to drive around, steal cars, shoot people, kill cops and screw hookers. When you're mature enough, fine, but the kid wouldn't even brush his teeth or take a shower if you didn't make him do it.

Short answer: there are some, but the methodology and conclusions are controversial. For some (biased but good) criticism favouring games, take a look at this book [amazon.com] if you can. From the studies cited in the book, it seems that people who are violent are likely to enjoy violent games, if they like games at all (which is seldom the case; in general they'd rather have the real thing). But people who are not violent do not become violent due to games.

It depends on who you ask. There are volumes of studies to both support and deny the assertion that video game violence trickles out into real life.

Whereas private money used to fund research, it has now become research. Scientists and researchers, being that they are still human beings, are typically as close-minded as any fundies out there and they are as easily influenced by money, power, prestige and the need to protect that which they have achieved as the most corrupt politician.

The scientific method is high school fodder. The new scienfitic method is as easily purchased as a loaf of bread.

I imagine the studies on this are like the studies on TV violence. The results are so varied and diametrically opposed to one another that each side can use the same study to prove their point.

The end result, to any person who doesn't read the reports with an agenda, is that the studies are skewed based on the method of measurement. There's something akin to Heisenberg in Sociology (another guy with an 'H' name): that the results are changed by the observation and the phrasing of the survey question or definition of metrics.

One funny case was in a home for violent boys. One set of boys got to watch gorey, violent TV and movies and the other set only PBS and screened shows. The boys who were forced to watch only non-violent TV ended up being so upset and violent that they finally forced the researcher to let them watch the shows they enjoyed again.

Anyone who thinks there is NO link to what you see/experience/read/hear/etc. and behavior is a complete moron. Even if you HAVE a degree. To think otherwise simply display's your "sign." I loath to agree with Hillary, and I'm fairly certain this is merely to give the illusion that she's a moderate, but comment on her position. Any attempt to argue that pre-teen boys can simply watch all this stuff and not be affected makes one look foolish.

Hey, I like GTA. It was a cool game when I had it...I mean, like anything got bored with it after a while.

But no way is my 11 year old son going to play it.

And last I checked, there ARE ratings on these games, like on movies. We don't need anything more do we? More laws? WTF?

My son plays Mario and other games like that on his Gamecube. No, not the most exciting games in the world, but he likes them. We also don't have a TV other than the one that the Gamecube is hooked up on.

No cable or even over-the-air TV. Because I'm making a statement? Yeah, kinda...I don't feel like paying 60 bucks a month for basic cable here from Comcast. And no antena can really pull down a broadcast. So, we've been without TV now for almost a year in the new house and guess what, we don't miss it.

Sorry, got off on a tangent. This is common sense kind of stuff here folks, and Hillery is mainly just saying "hey, look at me...over here...yoo hoo...I've got something sort of controversal to say, yet not really". Yeah, I'm a little jaded.

Imagine that... Senator Clinton, the woman who stood by her morally correct husband while at the top of the US government who supported his second in command's wife's desire to mark "inappropriate" music as such, supporting "proper" moral behavior for the inhabitants of this "free" country.

"Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them," she said in a statement on the issue. "This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it's OK to diss people because they are a woman, they're a different colour or they're from a different place."

Hmmm, what about the US Government desensitizing these same children using the same television by killing and torturing real people during wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or announcing that the head of the US Government was getting his cock sucked by a cigar smoking slut who was married to the same woman who is so against immoral behavior being shown to children?

The parents are letting their children play GTA and they are letting them watch the news. It's up to the parents of these children to give them direction in life not Senator Clinton or anyone else.

I'd like someone to sit down the youngsters in our country and try to explain to them how killing or torturing someone in a war that was permitted under false pretenses is morally acceptable but allowing an incapacitated woman to pass away peacefully is not. Or how the President willed a young woman to suck him off and put a cigar in her vagina because he had the power to do so was still allowed to run this "moral" country after he was found guilty of lying?

Let's have our parents teach us the morals they believe not the mixed messages that the US Government is sending.

Please stay out of the personal lives of your constituents. We don't need you tell us how to live our lives to be as "moral" as all of you.

Hmmm, what about the US Government desensitizing these same children using the same television by killing and torturing real people during wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or announcing that the head of the US Government was getting his...

This is just a troll.

The parents are letting their children play GTA and they are letting them watch the news. It's up to the parents of these children to give them direction in life not Senator Clinton or anyone else.

Isn't GTA rated Mature? This is basically the same as an R rated movie. i don't see what the big deal is. kids shouldn't be allowed to by Mature rated games just as they can't buy R rated movies, after that it's up to their parents and little else.

There absolutely are moral regulations that are necessary. Laws that prevent murder legislate morality. Would you want to ban those? Laws banning lewd acts with siblings and offspring are perfectly valid moral laws that have sound logic behind them. Do you wish to overturn these in your quest to get the "man" off your back?

Start drawing some lines about what you personally consider morally reprehensible and tell me you think it should be

You are aware that statistics and logic really have very little to do with each other. I mean, I am glad you spent all that time learning a fancy way to lie, but seriously...if you want to ban violent video games that most GOOD parents don't let their kids play...why don't we ban Passion of the Christ which "good" parents force their kids to watch. The main problem with you morons who want to place blame on video games is that you are totally hypocritical on other types of media. I think reading Of Mice and Men is fucking kids up in high school, ban all depressing literature! The game is rated for Mature. Period. If kids are playing it, then the parents screwed up. But don't you dare try to take it away from adults. We can choose what to with our free time. We can't eliminate everything we don't want our children to see without destroying freedom. Kids are a lot smarter than you assholes give them credit for. If they are taught right from wrong, they will grow up fine.

It's about harm. We recongise that you harm someone, their family, the community, etc by taking their life away. It's also something that can't be undone. Thus it's illegal to do, except under very specific circumstances.

The same is true of most more basic laws. They are about stopping something we recongise as harmful. Not harmful in the moral sense, but in the physical sense. Like theft, if someone deprives you of your property, you are harmed by that since you no longer have that property to use. If it

There absolutely are moral regulations that are necessary. Laws that prevent murder legislate morality. Would you want to ban those? Laws banning lewd acts with siblings and offspring are perfectly valid moral laws that have sound logic behind them. Do you wish to overturn these in your quest to get the "man" off your back?

Start drawing some lines about what you personally consider morally reprehensible and tell me you think it should be a free-for-all society. Now consider when we have to start drawing li

Then you'd have numbers and links supporting your statement, correct? And what's the point of these laws with today's contraceptives? Better yet, there are many types of "lewd acts" that can't possibly lead to impregnation, should they be banned as

I don't think that the government should try to legislate morality (after all, before you legislate morality, you have the more difficult task of deciding which morality to legislate). But I don't think it is so simple as you put it. The idea is that government has authority in the public sphere, but no authority in the private sphere. This sounds reasonable and may be a great goal, but doesn't work in practice. What happens in public affects people's private lives, and what happens in private affects the p

"I'd like someone to sit down the youngsters in our country and try to explain to them how killing or torturing someone in a war that was permitted under false pretenses is morally acceptable"It is not permitted. In fact in case you have not noticed several people are being tried or have already been convicted of these crimes. I have a feeling that more people in the CIA need to be put on trial.

The court is on your side so far on this one. But isn't good that all the questions about it have been brought up. I for one do not know if starving to death is "peaceful" as you put it. They claim she does not feel pain but then why did the Hospice give her morphine? She left no living will and her family is even at odds over it. This is in no way a simple case.

"Or how the President willed a young woman to suck him off and put a cigar in her vagina because he had the power to do so was still allowed to run this "moral" country after he was found guilty of lying?"

You got me on this one. I have no freaking idea. All I hear is that he was a good president and that the economy was better when he was president. Frankly giving him credit for what was an HUGE stock bubble plus the rise of the Internet plus the IT investment in Y2K

I feel that everything you have pointed out except the Shivo case are more signs of the problem than the root cause. The very fact that so many people like to play GTA is a bad sign. Couldn't the same style of game involve sneaking jews out of Nazi Germany or trying to bring down an oppressive government? The very idea of being good or a hero has fallen out of favor and become comedy. It is sad.

It doesn't even endore it, in fact, it is advertised as a work of fiction, entertainment, not the divine word by which to live your life, as the Bible is.

So while you contend that the OT doesn't apply to modern people (care to back that up? not saying it can't be, just want to see fi you can) some people may get the wrong idea, and that is what we are worried about with GTA right? That someone might read the sotry and believe they should actually do it.

I mean clearly there are many that think at least some parts of the OT are to be taken literally. Look at all those that cite it as reason why gay couples shouldn't be allowed to marry. Or how about the jurors receantly that cited the eye for an eye part when deciding to sentence a rapist to death (http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=1421604& location=http%3A%2F%2Fabcnews.go.com%2FUS%2FwireSt ory%3Fid%3D621347).

Point is that the Bible is full of authorization to do violence to others. Now perhaps the way you choose to interpret it says that doesn't apply now, that's fine, but it is still there. GTA doesn't command anyone to do anything, it's just a game, yet people seem to object to it based on its content. Why then, isn't there the same objection to the bible (rehtorical question)?

...and which books would those be? Exactly which great works of literature talk about what a great idea it is to have sex with a prostitute and then kill her?

It's a straw-man argument.

Besides, no one's (no one sane, anyway) is suggesting these games be banned. However, their sale should be restricted to those who society has decided are old enough to perceive the difference between fantasy and reality. If a parent or guardian believes their kid is mature enough to handle it, fine. They can buy it for them. We don't allow kids to buy alcohol, cigarettes or porn until we think they're old enough to decide for themselves. Why should games with adult themes be any different?

Frankly, too many parents are totally IGNORANT of what their kids are watching, playing and listening to. So parents should be more informed, who disagrees with this?

MOST kids have a problem discerning the difference between fantasy and reality, at one age or another. I know I did (at least, until about 8 or so). And who among us didn't have a teenage friend who honestly believed professional wrestling was real?

if the government Senator Clinton represents didn't use violence every day to solve it's problems. This is quite a bit bigger problem than the extremely questionable link that video games have with real world violence. I realize that the government wants to maintain a monopoly on violence, but this seems to be taking it a bit too far.

Discussion is a good thing. If you read further into the Australian article this appears more a political tack than anything substantive. Even so, I've seen some of the GTA footage and wonder where we're going. Fantasy is OK, to what point? Discussion is
important because while people are forced to defend opinions rather than simply bully the opposing view, options are open. I've thought Free Speach, regarding the content of video games to be a pretty tawdry use of constitutional protection. But years ago I could
sacrifice the corpse of a @ at an altar in NetHack, granted it was very graphic, but I haven't tried that to anyone on the street lately.

I remember reading about how wonderful alcohol was, while in Jr. High and Highschools. Never Cry Wolf, by Farley Mowat, painted a lovely picture of something called "wolf juice" which was (IIRC) half whiskey and half beer. This book was
required reading for some classes. Should I blame Mr. Mowat for how much I spend on ales, porters and stouts these days? I suggest a few million to conduct a meaningful study. If it's approved, I'll see you all down at the bar, first round is on me.

I'm not so concerned with 'diss' as I am 'colour.' When did she stop using American-English? Last I knew, we banned the letter 'u' about the same time we dumped all that tea in the harbour. CRAP!! There it is again!!! Please save me from the extraneous U's!!!

Is Hilary Clinton trying to swell the ranks of the Young Republicans? Whatever happened to Democrats sticking up for things like civil liberties? When do I get my Deomocrat party back from the corps and self righteous? Yet another disillusioned Democrat that desperatelhy want a middle of the road party to balance things out in this country of mine.

At the same time I get my Republican Party back from the New Aged GOP that has started supporting Big Government, Business, and Big Spending.

I'm wondering the same thing. Where'd all the real republicans go? The ones who don't pay subsidies to big business (and would've let some of the major airlines fold, to be replaced by more competitive ones) and don't spend needlessly on programs that aren't working or entire departments (the IRS could be mostly cut out in favor of a VAT, for example). Oh well, on the other hand, at least we're not as bad as most of the european countries in terms of the tax rate, spending, or unemployment (this isn't a swipe at europeans, many of your nations DO tax and spend more and have higher rates of unemployment).

It won't change until you find a way to convince the general public to stop voting people they don't really want up through the primary elections just because they think they can win, and find a way to convince the general public to stop believing fabricated rhetoric from the "news" telling them what to think about a candidate's character.

It's a much bigger problem than just finding a new candidate. It's a systemic problem involving the distribution and control of information, and it has hit both parties.

Sorry, but it's the case. I would call myself a Libretarian as I generally tend to support liberal social policies but conservative economic ones. That fits with the general stated goal of thr Libertarians, the idea being that the government should be there to provide for the common good but stay the hell out of our lives as much as possible.

Great, but then they take that to the extreme. It is quite clear that we DO need governmental regulation of a lot of things, and that the government DOES have to be in

It's pretty nice in my party. We aren't beholden to anybody, and we only follow what we believe.

It's called being an Independent.:)

I learned long ago that political parties are nothing more than organized religions. They're only right some of the time, and they all tell the truth, but only their agreeable versions of it.

Lean Democrat, if that so suits you. But do it because it's what you believe, not what the party believes. Clearly, you are already disillusioned with the Democrats. So don't be one, and wait along for someone to come along you agree with and vote for them based on the issues, not affiliation.

You'd be amazed how difficult this concept is for so many people. "Which party are you?" "None." *blank stare*

Yeah, there's no real libertarian party, though. I'd consider myself to be one, but I would've never voted for the idiots they put up in elections recently. I mean, I happen to agree with a lot of the religious conservative morality, but I also don't think its the role of government to force you to abide by those just as long as you're not harming anyone else in the process (aka, I'm still against people shooting other people and believe the law can stipulate this, but I also dont think we should teach ab

The "War on Drugs" was not a creation of the Clinton administration. It's actually a very very old propaganda effort, and most of its proponents have been republicans.

See:
http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/pol/495lect03.htm

From my own formative years, I remember when Reagan re-invigorated the Nixon anti-drug efforts after Ford let them fade out. Carter was very much anti-drug (still is), but thought that there were more pressing concerns for the executive.

If you do your homework (which it seems you do not), you'll see that your perceived "democratic legislation of morality" has historically (over the last 40-50 years or so) included legalized abortion, civil rights and equal rights for women.

Sadly, it is republicans that want to pass laws that restrict personal freedoms and civil rights... controlling who you marry, how you die, what you watch, where you can go, what you can see and where you can travel. Now that they have majority, this is also their great opportunity to force christian values on everyone -- not by bringing them to church in fellowship, but by only passing laws that pass a christian fundamentalist litmus test. For shame.

...about violent games is that parents are buying them for their children, and abdicating the responsibility for moral choice about what their kids see and participate in to complete strangers, ie us game developers.

If they're making an informed choice to say "Ok Jimmy, you can smoke cops and bang that ho!", they can't complain about it. If they're not making that choice and the kid does it anyway, that's their fault too...

This may be counter to most of the belief's here, but I think that with games such as GTA there is an underlying issue of responsibility. While I am not blaming the game company for what they have produced, I certainly do think that games such as GTA should not be played by kids. Simply telling parents to not allow their children to play really isn't enough and doesn't get to the core of the issue. What responsibility do game producers have for content that is likely to end up being played by kids? How about the responsibility of parents? And the responibility of your kid's friend's parents? ('cause just because you don't allow it in your house, doesn't mean that Billy doesn't have it.) I think there needs to be more discussion along these points and less finger pointing of who's to blame.

Legally enforcing those ESRB ratings seems like the obvious choice to please both sides.

Hillary Clinton doesn't want an impressionable 15 year old playing GTA. I'm 22, and want to play whatever the hell I please because I'm an adult that's responsible for his own actions.

I know the ESRB rating system has been around for a while, but nobody enforces it. Nobody is preventing a 15 year old kid from buying a copy of GTA, BMX XXX, or any other game that *probably* isn't all that appropriate for younger kids, even if I played similar games at that age myself and have never physically harmed another human being.

The problem is that enforcing this screws the retail chains that carry these titles (in addition to screwing the under-18 market, but since they can't vote, I doubt Hilly cares anyway).

Is the game terrible? Yes
Is the game fun? Yes
Should the government be telling creative people what they can and can not develop? No
This goes hand in hand with freedom of speech.
The core issue lies in morality (lack thereof) and parents who just don't care. Let capitolism determine what will be produced.

"Senator Hillary Clinton has joined right wing advocates in decrying the gaming industry as a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences."

Oh, come now! The United States Senate itself is "a paragon of loose morals and corrupting influences!" If Congress spent half of the energy it spends on trying to reform us on reforming itself, we might actually have a respectable national government for once.

I play video games to get away from stuff like this, and now some USS wants to take that away from me as well?

Do you blame her, or do you blame the people who voted for GW in the last election citing 'morals' as the reason? I'm still puzzled by that, actually, but... clearly, she's been taking some more traditionally right-wing stances lately, and everyone seems to think, probably correctly, that she's gearing up for a national election ( either as V.P. or president, it's anyone's guess ).

Politically, this stance on video games is pretty safe, and you'll note that all she's doing here is saying we should study how bad the problem really is.

She could be doing this knowing full and well that any honest study may come back with the result of "these are no worse than movies and books", with the final result being ( in the worst case ) congress passing laws requiring age restrictions on games. Honestly, I think that's going to far, and they're actually likely to get struck down in court ( IF we can keep GW from packing in another serious social conservative, which isn't looking good ), but in the long run, it might be good for the industry and result in even *more* explicit games. When you have to get a game from behind the counter or from a local non-blockbuster video store or an online source because *mart is too weak to carry it, the gloves are off, you can make that game as nasty as you want.

In the long run, a video game is no different than a movie in a lot of ways, so if there's some lame decency rating system that prevents a minor from buying a really gory, racist, sexist movie, then that same system should be placed on games, in all seriousness and fairness. But it should actually ( I think ) be the same system- it's not right to use stricter standards for games than other video content.

Untimately, though, we have a generally bad situation in America, where people are abdicating their parental responsibilities to the state, and it's not OK. If your kid is playing a graphic game, and you don't want them to, you should be able to prevent them without affecting the rest of society. It's no different than letting them buy a really gory or violent DVD. Don't let them do it, and take it and punish them if they get one. You're the parent, act like it. If you want the state to police your morals, move to Iran, they'll help you out.

Why is it that the instant you sit a politician down with a copy of Grand Theft Auto, the first thing they do is seek out a prostitute, have sex with them, and then murder them for money?

I mean, I had my copy for months before I knew you could do that. (I like to avoid FAQ-style sites until I either really need them or I've finished the game.) Not these politicians, though; wham, within five minutes apparently they've nailed a whore and then run her down.

Missions? Cruising the town and admiring the graphics? Committing a crime and noticing that you actually get caught (unlike many games where it's just oblivious)? OK, I won't try to claim that GTA teaches you anything serious about consequences (though I'd point out the lack of Pay & Sprays in the Real World (TM)), but still, there's more to the game then blowing away women of the night after they service you.

I mean, come on, this is Grand Theft Auto, and that's all you can find to complain about? Yeesh, try a couple of missions or something. What about flying around the city without filing a flight plan and illegally littering on a grand scale by dumping out explicit pornographic fliers which flutter around for the remainder of the game? Just look at all those crimes!

People over 18 are considered adults for all practical purposes, and should not be told what games they can and cannot play. As a 21 year old, I LOVE the violence in these games as I realize that they are pure fantasy. If I am willing to spend money to purchase this game, Rockstar should be permitted to make it if there's a market.

If children area buying the game when they are underage, then THAT is the problem that needs to be addressed, not whether people should make games like this. Because there is a whole market who is able to handle this "realism" and as part of that market, I don't want to have something I find fun taken away because some moralistic bitch wants to impose her morals on my life.

Who are they paying with this money? Do you really need $90million worth of research on this topic? Classrooms are overcrowded, people are going hungry, teachers are underpaid... the deficit is going up...

Isn't there something more important to go after than this? This is EXACTLY what Bush did during the election by making gay marriage the issue of the election instead of the economy...

All she's doing is grandstanding to get elected by the rightwing while calling herself a leftwing democrat.

"Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them..."

Wow. Sounds like those children have some really crappy parents. My brother would never let his daughter play a game like Grand Theft Auto.

Perhaps, Senator Clinton, this is what comes of trying to get the "village" to raise a child. There are a lot of jerks in any given community who will happily sell violent soft-core pornography to children at $60 retail.

Perhaps, Senator Clinton, this is what comes of trying to get the "village" to raise a child.

Everyone should just ignore her. This is Hillary Clinton just trying to appear centrist in order to set herself up for a 2008 Presidential run. She's been saying a lot of things lately about "faith" and "morals" due to the "moral values" issue of the last election.

I don't even care if you're Democrat. Just pointing out what is obviously going on, and why she's suddenly speaking out on this. Decide what you want (personally, I'm not sure she'll ever successfully shake her image as an ultra-liberal from upper New York).

The problem is senator Clinton assumes that video games and children go hand in hand. This is certainly not the case. She doesn't understand that there are video games (like GTA) that are not designed for children. Adults and video games are not mutually exclusive.

The biggest issue is that most parents think the same way. Most don't bother to investigate what kind of games their chilren are playing. They assume that it's a video game so it must be designed for children.

of course it takes a village to properly raise a child. do you somehow think that the child's entire world experience is controlled by their parents?

Nonsense.

The village is simply the setting in which the child is raised. The job of the parent is to raise a kid capable of coping with the time he or she will spend wading through the cesspool of humanity's lowest common denominators.

i was absolutely stunned when i was waiting in line to buy my copy of GTA-SA, when a 12-ish year old was getting his mothe

Kids don't grow up to become prostitute-murdering psychopaths because they played a videogame that "taught them it was cool." Give children a little bit of credit here.

While I agree that playing such a videogame
wouldn't be a cause of that kind of
behavior, I think it's important to keep in
mind a powerful social/psychological
concept called "validation". People (not
just children) have thoughts, and then they
decide whether to go with their thoughts
partly based on whether they get validation
of tho

At 18, kids are being propositioned by prostitutes in American cities. Somehow I think that if they can handle that [and there's no great outcry from the right about that!] they can certainly handle a video game.

maybe i'm gittin' old... but GTA is pretty fvcking twisted for a 18 y.o. to be playing... sorry, but it really, really is morally vapid. game or no game, there's no need to plant those seeds.

First off, this game isn't free, it's for profit. It's simply an escallation of a genre of game which probably are the merger of FPS, 1on1 combat and racing with a little RPG sprinkled over it to give it some place to go. What's probably a good exercise is trying to guess what the next iteration will be like.

I don't see how playing GTA is any worse than enjoying an episode of The Sopranos.

We are invited to sympathize with Tony Soprano as he:

- Covers up the murder of a stripper by one of his henchmen.- Kills and decapitates the very same henchman for mistreating an animal he liked.- Shatters the knee of a gambler who owes him money- Bankrupts the father of his daughter's best friend- Cheats on his wife with multiple partners

Why don't people complain about The Sopranos they way they do about GTA?

Because people understand that The Sopranos is intended for adults. GTA and games like it are also intended for adults, but there are a lot of people out there who don't understand that.

"Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters -- some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend -- to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.

"Many of you are well enough off that... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

Redistribution of wealth is the whole point of taxation. If you want to end all taxation and government spending, OK, good luck with that. Meanwhile, redistribution of wealth is mostly what government does.

Not really. The whole point of taxation is to fund projects where the public gain exceeds the public cost, but the private cost exceeds the private gain. In other words, those things which no individual will do, but which benefit the public. Or, in other words, a hell of a lot less than any government is doing today.-russ

Maybe a little offtopic, but the fact remains that her beliefs on fiscal policy revolve around the redistribution of wealth via taxation.

All that means is that she's a Democrat. What else is new? Democrats have always believed that the wealthy should be forced to give up more money in order to help those that are less fortunate. The thinking behind that is that the wealthy can afford to lose relatively more money without suffering, whereas the poor desperately need that money to continue operating in

This quote means a little more in context. From this site: [sfgate.com]

Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters -- some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend -- to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.

In other words, she was speaking to a room full of really wealthy people when she said

He is a republican, he is not interested in presenting the whole truth and then having a rational discussion about it. He just wants to make sure "Hitlery" as they like to call her never becomes president.